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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JUNE, 1917
the survey results brought back from my former journeys. He now kindly agreed to depute with me my experienced old travel companion, Rai Bahadur Lal Singh, Sub-Assistant Superintendent of the Survey of India, and to make available also the services of a second surveyor of his department, Muhammad Yakub Khan, along with all necessary equipment and a grant to cover their travelling expenses. Thus the wide extension of our proposed fresh topographical labours was assured from the outset. For my geographical work I found also an asset of the greatest value in the moral support which the Royal Geographical Society generously extended to me, besides granting the loan of some surveying instruments. During the weary months of preparation, with all their strain of work and anxiety, and afterwards in whatever solitudes of mountains and deserts my travels took me to, I never ceased to derive true encouragement from the generous recognition which the Society had accorded to my former efforts to serve the aims of geographical science. Nor can I omit to record here my deep sense of gratitude for the unfailing sympathy and friendly interest with which in their ever-welcome letters Dr. Keltie and Mr. Hinks, the Society's Secretaries helped to cheer and guide me.
After a Kashmir winter and spring passed over incessant work on Serindia, the detailed report on the scientific results of my second journey, there arrived by the middle of May the Secretary of State's eagerly awaited sanction for my expedition. Relying on the kind consideration which my plans had so often received before at the India Office, I had ventured to anticipate, as far as I safely could, a favourable decision, and the lists of orders, etc., for the multifarious equipment needed were ready. Yet it cost no small effort to assure the completion of all the varied preparations within the short available time, considering how far away I was from bases of supply and friends who could help me. A careful survey of all the climatic and topographical factors determining the programme of my movements had convinced me that I could not safely delay my start across the mountains northwards beyond the very beginning of August. So the weeks which remained to me in the peaceful seclusion of my beloved Kashmir mountain camp, Mohand Marg, 11,000 feet above the sea, saw me hard at work from sunrise till evening. By July 23 I moved down from its Alpine coolness to the summer heat of the Kashmir Valley in order to complete our final mobilization at Srinagar in the spacious quarters which the kindness of my old friend, Mr. W. Talbot, had conveniently placed at my disposal for those last busy days in civilization.
There I had the satisfaction to find Rai Bahadur Lal Singh, my trusted old companion, duly arrived with all the surveying equipment, which included this time two 6-inch theodolites, a Zeiss levelling set, a Reeves telescopic alidade and two mercurial mountain barometers, besides an ample supply of aneroids, hypsometers, plane-tables, prismatic compasses, etc. With him had come the second surveyor, a young Pathan of good birth, with manners to match, and that excellent Dogra Rajput, Mian Jasvant Singh, who had accompanied every survey party taken by me to Central Asia. In spite of advancing years he had agreed to act once more as the Rai Sahib's cook, and to face all the familiar hardships of wintry deserts and wind-swept high mountains. At Srinagar I was joined also by two other Indian assistants, who, though new to Central Asian travel, proved both excellent selections for their respective spheres of work. In Naik Shams Din, a corporal of the First (King George's Own) Sappers and Miners, whom Colonel Tylden-Pattenson, commanding that distinguished corps, had chosen for me after careful testing, I found a very useful and capable "handy man" for all work requiring technical skill. A Panjabi Muhammadan
